Shadow of Persephone

by G Lawrence

  We had spoken of marriage, but not sworn it. When I told him I was worried, for he had to make a name before he might honourably claim me, he just laughed. Perhaps he did not think he needed any more than he already had to claim me.

  Pleasures I had felt with him were waning. I missed that feeling of being lost to the world, to all care, like a sparrow in an empty field, beholden to none but herself. The only way I knew to get that feeling back was through Francis. But increasingly he was only concerned with what he wanted.

  Frustrated to not be able visit at night, he would grab me in dim corridors, reminding me so much of Manox that my eyes would drop empty and my body went limp. He took this for acceptance.

  Knowing if my grandmother was to come on a surprise visit she would come by night, Francis started to appear in our chamber during the day. As head of the servants, he could enter the maidens’ chamber without questions being asked, but whilst there he had me lie with him, in broad daylight. Everyone could hear, and sometimes see, what went on. No more were curtains drawn about the bed. He lay with me on it, lifting my skirts and more than once other girls came in and abruptly left, after getting a full look at my intimate regions.

  He told Ned I had greensickness and needed his attentions or I would waste away and die, but it seemed to me there was a fever upon Francis. He started to accost me in galleries and corridors, and more than once pulled me into the jakes, thrusting his shaft into my hands whilst we were surrounded by the stench of piss.

  This, in particular, scared me, for it was done as though he intended to scare me. It was sudden, possessive, as though he had decided I must prove my affection.

  But if I said anything, he grew angry. He warned me about it. “You should not make me angry,” he said when he was calm and I knew he was right. I did as he asked, and sometimes he was so kind. I wanted only that man, the nice one, so tried not to anger him.

  Mary, seeing much and hearing more, gossiped about me. For all her fine boasts about piety, she was not kind, as Jesus was. She told whoever would listen that I was light of morals and unchaste, a wanton. She began to tell people about Manox, painting him as the innocent and me as the whore.

  And people believed her. My reputation was in tatters, and once that happens to a woman, people think her capable of anything.

  In fear, I clung only more to Francis. I thought he alone could save me from this slander and hatred. I understood the hatred not, for what had I ever done to Mary? As far as I could see I had hurt no one, but she wanted to hurt me.

  “Women turn on one another,” said Joan. “We have little power, and when one has more, others resent it.” Her eyes became far away. “Women hurt each other more than men. We are all in a pit, trying to be free. Clambering over each other, pushing others down… that is what some women see as the way into the light.” She smiled. “Ignore Mary.”

  I tried to laugh it off. When Alice told me I should beware of having a child, I told her “a woman might meddle with a man, yet conceive no child until she would,” and left with my head held high. Shamed I might be in my heart, but I would not let them cast me down in public. I would not. If that meant being brazen about my actions, so be it.

  My uncle William heard some of the talk, and, thinking we women were fighting over Francis, for he was so handsome, said, “What mad wenches! Can you not be merry amongst yourselves but you must thus fall out?” Later I saw him clap Francis on the back. Francis told me he had whispered in his ear that it was a fine thing for a man to find himself fought over by many women.

  My uncle had no reason to divulge our affairs to my grandmother. He would reap only trouble as well. He was bedding Margaret Morton, not in our chambers, but she went to him at night in his rooms.

  I was not the only sinner in that household, far from it.

  I played the bold woman before those who slandered me. If Francis called me ‘wife’, I called him ‘husband’. When wildness took hold, I kissed Francis with as much vigour as when he grasped for me. I tried to lose myself in sensation, to block out all that was eating me. It worked, for a while, but at night, shame and guilt returned, twisting in me, telling me I was a terrible person. Church became a horror, for it felt as though the priest was speaking about me when he talked of sin. But, not knowing what to do, I carried on, bluffing my way through days that were becoming only more hollow.

  Only Alice thought there was something wrong, and she went to Mary, saying that Francis was making unreasonable demands on me. Mary rounded on her. “She is a wanton,” Mary said. “Pay no heed to her, she only fears to be caught.”

  Alice, of course, told Joan, who went to Mary and told her to be quiet. Grateful, I thanked her, “and there is no sin,” I said to Joan. “Francis wants to marry me when he has made his name.”

  “You should be careful about that,” Joan said.

  “About what?”

  “Making promises to Dereham,” she said. “Your family will not let you marry him, Catherine. He is too low born.”

  “But, if I do not wed him, am I not all the things Mary calls me?”

  Joan smiled. “You are so naive at times, Catherine. Look at me, a husband at home and a lover in my bed. You think I am about to make public all that Ned and I do together?” She shook her head. “There is not a woman at court who did not tarry with a man when she was young. Not one. Everyone said your cousin did in France, and they know Mary Boleyn did. Jane Seymour, too, is said to have been no maid when she married the King. Your uncle Norfolk once offered the wife of one of his men to Cromwell. The highest and lowest of the land have all done as we do now. Dereham will not dare say a thing about all this later, and neither will anyone else, for they know what your uncle would do to them. But do not make promises. Such oaths can be binding if the match has been consummated.”

  “So, you do not think me ruined?” My voice sounded small.

  Joan’s eyebrows knitted together, and she laughed. “You have been listening to Mary too much. All this is nothing, Catherine. If nothing can be proved, nothing will be said. And you have only taken one lover. Many girls have done worse, in this house alone! All this…” she waved her hand, “… is but the fleeting pleasures of youth. This time is just an interlude before the trials of life. When we are old and grey, with a house full of children screaming away, we can look back at this time and smile, knowing how well we were adored. Enjoy this time, but do not promise things you cannot keep. In time, when his affection and yours fades, you do not want to be saddled to a man unworthy of you.” She patted my hand. “Remember,” she said. “You are a Howard.”

  “I will make Francis angry.”

  She frowned. “Francis is angry too much at you.”

  “It is not his fault.” The taut defence in my tone surprised even me. Why was I defending him?

  “Whose fault is it then?”

  “Mine,” I said. “I make him angry.”

  Joan’s eyebrows shot up and her eyes narrowed. “So you have mastery of his emotions?” She offered a sceptical glance. “Francis is in charge of his own self, Catherine. He is master of his emotions, not you. If he is angry, it is because he allows himself to be.”

  She touched my arm. “Fall not for such lies. My husband used them often enough, so I know them for what they are. When he beat me, it was my fault, so he did not have to feel bad for bruises on my skin or blood flowing from my nose. Do not become the release for a man’s rage and his excuse for it. That leads to one place. It is not a happy one.”

  Joan sparked something in me. She was right. I had done no worse than many in the house, than many in England! One lover, what was that? Joan had taken more than me, and Alice had lain with Antony. Dorothy had bedded Ned and then Thomas. Margaret sneaked out nightly to my uncle’s chamber. There was little difference between us all. The only difference was Francis. How public he was making our affair. That was the only danger. With that understanding, I became less ashamed, and at the same time, more resolved.

  I was a Howa
rd. My father might be an unimportant Howard, but it was still my name. That name was worth much, and Joan was right, Francis would say nothing, he would not dare. I could do better. I did not have to marry this man who was kind one moment and scared me the next. It was not a done deal.

  And I had never said I would marry him. He had said he would marry me, but I had not formally consented. I had called him husband, but that was no agreement. Realising that was strange, like a shaft of sunshine through dark skies. He had said it, and I had assumed that was how it would be. So had everyone. No one had asked me if I consented, and consent was required.

  That day, I was light on my feet. I danced for my grandmother, whirling in the glimmering light from the diamond windowpanes, my feet free as I felt my heart could be again, too.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chesworth House

  Autumn 1538

  I made up my mind to separate myself from Francis, and for that I needed help. It was no use asking my friends, but I had another ally I could turn to, one who I would have to shock, as I had before, to enlist her help.

  I was going to lay this bare to my grandmother, but not in words. When she had caught me with Manox she had turned on him, cast him from the house. I would do the same now. As long as she was not told how far this affair had gone she would protect me. I would be punished, of course, but I had been before and had survived. Beat me, she would, scream at me, she was certain to, but she would not lay my reputation bare for the world to see. I was a Howard and her granddaughter. She would keep this quiet… for her reputation as much as mine.

  For the first time in months, I felt power in my hands. Crafty, duplicitous, it was, but it was power and I grasped it tight to my breast. I was going to unstick this limpet from me.

  And it was high time. Francis had started to call me “wife” before other people. Where once, I had responded by calling him husband, I did no more, but merely smiled. It was enough to console him, but when I saw Joan nodding to me, I knew she understood. If I did not affirm his claim, it was no claim.

  He pestered me to agree formally to marriage, but I told him it was for his sake I waited. “It would place you in danger, Francis. For at present, although to me you are above all other men, you are not high enough to claim my hand. Were Norfolk to hear, he would think you were usurping his rights. We must wait, beloved.”

  With soft words and flattering persuasion I made it appear as though I held back for his sake, and he believed me. Why should he not? He thought me his property, like the lands he owned in Norfolk, without a thought that was mine.

  But my possessive lover was about to find this item of property had a will of her own.

  I waited for my chance, and one day, when he came up to me in a corridor, I knew it had come. I had gone ahead of my grandmother to tidy her chamber, and she was due to walk behind me at any moment. Succumbing to his embrace, I allowed him to draw me into a window seat, where he kissed me. As I kept my hands on his ears, as though caressing his hair, he did not hear the clip of my grandmother’s cane.

  The first he knew of it was an ear-splitting roar. As he broke from me, my grandmother hit him about the head with her stick. Then she turned on me, shouting in shock and amazement about my wanton behaviour as she beat me hard with her cane. As blows fell on my arms, legs and side, I howled in pain, but there was a note of victory in those wails.

  Poor Joan, who just happened to be at my grandmother’s side, also got a few whacks, for no other reason than being within the reach of the cane, but most fell on me. Francis leapt back, watching as she beat me, and Alice and Kat dodged away to avoid her wrath.

  Eventually, as I lay on the ground, curled into a ball, she turned on Francis. “Snake!” she shouted. “I should have seen you slithering towards my granddaughter! Do you think to draw her into marriage, wretch? Think to fool a stupid girl into making a promise so you might rise in the world? It shall never be! Get you gone!”

  I will never be as clever as my grandmother, I thought as Alice and Kat picked me up, slapping a handkerchief to my head where skin had broken. That was what he wanted, why he had told me I was ruined and no other man would want me. It was not only jealousy, not love, it was ambition. If I was damaged goods, I was cheaper to buy, more accessible to a man with small prospects. Yet I had not seen it. Had not seen much past my confusion, shame and dread, truth be told. What I had suspected of Manox, I had not even dreamed Francis capable of. Joan was right, I was naive.

  I had to withstand more beatings, but each one was worth it. Uncle William was brought in to give me a stern talking to about my duties both as a woman and a Howard and I agreed humbly to all he said. My grandmother kept me close each day, just as she had after Manox, and I was brought to her chamber at night, to be her bedfellow. Francis had no access to me.

  He sent messages, and I ignored them. He told people we were to wed, and Joan told him if he valued his place in the household, if not his life, he would speak no more. “I told him your grandmother is to send you to court,” she said. “And that she knows of all that happened between you, but will hush it up.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Tell him I am sorry, but I am duty-bound to obey my family. No more may I meet with him, and talk of marriage must end.”

  Uncle William told Francis to be quiet too, warning him my grandmother was fond of him, but highly disappointed. If he wanted to keep his job he must cease to think of me. Francis went silent. I barely saw him, for when he was brought to my grandmother I was sent to another room.

  She was hard with me, hit me with her hands and lashed me with her tongue. Much as before I was punished harshly for minor infractions, but I endured it. She was angry I had been foolish enough to get caught, not knowing it had been one of the cleverest things I had done.

  Contrite and silent I was before my grandmother, but my heart sang every day.

  *

  “It is hard to believe this has happened,” said my grandmother, almost to herself.

  Lord Montagu and the Marquess of Exeter had been executed for their part in what had become known as the White Rose Affair, the supposed Pole plot to bring an invasion fleet to England and depose the King. This had not happened of course, but a law passed some years earlier had made it treason to intend to commit treason.

  “You mean men may die for a thought, my lord?” I had asked my uncle William.

  “Indeed.”

  Exeter’s son, Edward Courtenay, who was only a boy, was still in the Tower, along with his mother, Gertrude. Lord Montagu’s son had also been arrested, and over time we heard less and less of him, until one day he slipped from record and memory, vanishing from the world.

  The chambers of the Countess of Salisbury had been searched. The King’s men had found a banner embroidered with the old arms of England, which seemed to indicate the Countess thought herself and her sons higher than the King.

  The Countess denied everything, but her pleas were falling on deaf ears. She was still under house arrest, but it seemed likely she would soon find herself in the Tower, alongside the bones of her son.

  “I know you sorrow, my lady,” I said to my grandmother. “I will pray for the Countess.”

  She glanced sharply at me. It had become her habit to look for fault, but her eyes softened. “It is hard to remember, when you are agreeable, that there is another side to you,” she said. “You look so like an innocent child, at times.”

  “I know I disappointed you, my lady,” I said. “But I will not again. I am yours, to do with as you please. That, I understand now.”

  My adult reply pleased her. “See to it that it stays that way,” she said. “As for that crafty creature… I have long admired his bold ways and handsome face, but Dereham was trying to trick you into marriage. You do see that, do you not?”

  “I did not until you said it, my lady.”

  She sighed. “One day you must grow eyes, girl. You are a Howard, but of a lesser, poorer strain than that of your uncle the Duke. You ar
e therefore an easy target for hill-diggers. Men like Dereham are wise to the ways of the world. You are too young in mind. You do not see that promises of love from men of ignoble blood are not made for genuine affection, but for gain. If men like him can capture a girl, get a promise, they can hold us to ransom.” She rose slowly from her seat at the window and walked to me.

  She put a hand on my shoulder. “If you are to go to court, you must grow a mind. There are many men like Dereham there, and all after one thing; money. Do not become a purse. Be a woman, a Howard, and understand even if you have no dowry to speak of you have worth. You can do better.”

  I nodded. “I understand, my lady. I am young and have been foolish.”

  She inclined her head. “That can excuse much, but it cannot excuse all. Be careful, girl. To be a fool in youth is expected, but you are growing up. To go to court still a fool is to go a dead woman.”